Peter Singer

I’d like to broaden this discussion.  The psychic numbing that Paul Slovic has researched has consequences that are even more significant than the fact that the genocide in Darfur has not been stopped.  Nicholas Kristof raised the issue himself in a 2006 column headed “Why Genocide Matters” in which he pointed out that the number of people killed in Darfur “is modest in global terms” – he estimated that it was then in the range of 200,000-500,000, compared to an annual death toll from malaria of one to three million.  And he added:

So yes, you can make an argument that Darfur is simply one of many tragedies and that it would be more cost-effective to save lives by tackling diarrhea, measles and malaria.

Mr Kristof then went on to argue that we should be especially concerned about genocide, even when by focusing on genocide we will save fewer lives than we could save if we focused instead on other causes of avoidable deaths.  Whatever we think about that claim, we can all agree that the costs of psychic numbing are far greater than the continuation of the genocide in Darfur.

In my forthcoming book The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (Random House, March 2009) I argue that all of us who are comfortably middle-class have an obligation to help to prevent the poverty-related deaths of more than 10 million people a year.  (UNICEF gives this figure for the number of children under 5 who die each year from avoidable poverty-related causes, and of course many older children and adults are also victims of poverty.) Yet, even when we combine government and private aid, Americans still give less than 25 cents in every $100 they earn to help those in extreme poverty.  That’s about a quarter of what Swedes give, and even they could and should give more.

In my book I suggest some social strategies that may help to increase the amount we give.  Without going into details here, the main point is to change our expectations about what decent people ought to be doing about global poverty.  I’m also building a website to provide more information and encourage people to do more: www.thelifeyoucansave.com (to be up and running by February 2^nd).